Healthy Living: National News
Story Updated: Nov 28, 2012
More than two decades ago Canadian researchers first discovered that grapefruit interacts with certain medicines... statins being one of the biggies (study and PR). Now, they're warning that an increasing number of newly marketed drugs may be grapefruit-affected.
Eating grapefruit or drinking grapefruit juice can cause some medicines to enter your body faster than they should.
According to a new review, between 2008 and 2012, the number of medications with the potential to interact with grapefruit causing serious adverse effects increased from 17 to 43. Adverse effects include respiratory failure, acute kidney failure, gastrointestinal bleeding and sudden death.
In all, 85 drugs are now known or predicted to interact with grapefruit.
The researchers urge health care professionals to be mindful of this danger...and advise their patients accordingly.
If you want to know more about which drugs pose a problem, The American Academy of Family Physicians has good information on grapefruit interactions at: http://www.aafp.org.
I'm Dr. Cindy Haines of HealthDay TV with with health information for healthier living.